Though powered by prog pretentiousness and punk pissiness, Sacramento’s Tera Melos isn’t just another band of post-rock pansies. These guys came to agitate and irritate anyone who shows up with a preconceived notion. Nick Reinhart layers guitars, loops, electronics — and even the occasional vocal melody — over Nathan Latona’s…

Walking the line between brutality and accessibility can be tricky for a bad-ass metal band. Metallica, for example, gained more radio play than ever with its infamous “black album,” but left many of its longtime fans weeping over what they felt was a despicable artistic compromise. Sweden’s In Flames, however,…

Sometimes it’s hard to look back on your past. With a mixture of shame, sadness and nostalgia, you leaf through your baby pictures, grade-school love letters, high-school yearbook, wedding album and resumé, trying to find the signposts and forks in the road that brought you to your current situation. For…

Though it’s certainly not the rule, every once in a while, good things do actually last. With its quirky 1996 debut single and video, “Novocaine for the Soul,” Eels had all the hallmarks of a one-hit wonder. Twelve years later, though, Mark Everett and company have earned a devoted following…

I was in my bedroom, trying not to wake people up, so my songs came out naturally quiet and sad,” says Corey Teruya, letting out a chuckle as he reflects on his early songwriting efforts. “Now we can make a little more noise.” Indeed. The Hawaiian-born songwriter and his Hello…

We Are! We Are! is a slippery beast. Slithering free of instrumental-rock pitfalls and cliches, the trio handily weaves together tropes from surf rock, math rock, hardcore and even funk, creating thoroughly unique, dizzyingly deft compositions. North Carolina transplants Jim Sutton, Sam Gault and Sam Cat have quickly developed a…

Like a Zen cowboy hobo, Jim White seems to have his finger on many pulses at once: One part backwoods hermit, one part Buddhist sage and two parts boxcar troubadour, the singer-songwriter makes music that is simultaneously heartbroken, lonely and perfectly content. The name of his latest release is White’s…

Xavier de Rosnay’s honesty is refreshing — even if the words he’s just uttered won’t exactly go down as the most artistically inclined assertion ever made. “We make electronic music,” the musician confesses, “because it’s accessible and easy.” Rosnay is one half of international dance-floor phenom Justice, whose suave yet…

“Eating before practice helps a lot.” With a mouthful of homemade pizza, drummer Sam Spitzer is explaining the secret of the Hollyfelds’ camaraderie. Before each rehearsal, the quintet sits down to a meal at the Spitzers’ home. What started as carryout has evolved to delicious home-cooked meals, compliments of Spitzer’s…

While Gil Mantera’s Party Dream makes more-or-less sincere and angst-filled electro-emo, you’d never guess it from the duo’s live shows. On stage, the brothers from Youngstown, Ohio, dance, prance and make general asses of themselves with giddy, homoerotic abandon and total disregard for any hangups the audience might have. Gil…

There’s nothing like a presidential election to make you lose faith in electoral politics. The corporate candidates begin to blur together, and the prospects for meaningful change get slimmer with each passing debate. Maybe it’s like the Minutemen once said: Perhaps some partying will help. That’s where Mahjongg comes in…

A trio grows in Brooklyn — an aggressive, spacey and challenging trio. As its name suggests, Dub Trio finds its inspiration in the decades-old aesthetics of bass-heavy, reverb-soaked, sinsemilla-sucking Jamaican reggae, but from that cliff, the group leaps off into completely unexpected and brutal territory. Drummer Joe Tomino, bassist Stu…

It’s often said that the greatest geniuses go unappreciated during their own lifetimes. The true brilliance of ancient masters like Michelangelo and Leonardo wasn’t fully grasped until long after their deaths. People even underestimated the talents of Americans like Whitman, Bukowski and Eazy-E while they walked among us. Then there…

As the second wave of grunge washes across the country and the globe — whinier and wimpier than the first — the world’s metal mavens have begun to scurry to their corners to formulate survival strategies. Increasingly, these Mad Maxes look to past heroes for salvation and inspiration. Among them…

An Iowan with an inexplicable and inconsistent British accent, Magic Cyclops is one of Denver’s great enigmas. Live, he rarely performs with more than a laptop and a stage set that falls just below the production standards of a kindergarten talent show. The tinny, Casio-dominated production of his recorded works…

With unhinged twanginess, unabashed spaciness and unapologetic snottiness, deadbubbles plays raunchy, raucous rock and roll that exists out of time. The Broomfield-based outfit’s psychedelic rhythm-and-blues-a-billy seethes, surges and snarls as it spans the rock decades, comprising the rhythmic romp of the Crickets, the sassy swagger of the Yardbirds and the…